Dear Mary: Can I ask our hosts to look for my husband’s tooth in the flowerbed?

Q. My 74-year-old husband was having drinks in the garden of some young clients when he bit down on an olive with a huge stone in the middle. He heard a crack and picked the stone out of his mouth – along with what he thought was a splinter of tooth – and threw the bits into the flowerbed. This morning his dentist told him he had thrown away a whole crown. While he could repair the crown, it will cost £500 to create a new one. Although I would have no qualms in asking someone of our own age to scrabble through a flowerbed looking for a 74-year-old man’s tooth, I feel that a beautiful twentysomething girl would be repulsed by the request. We live too far away to drive back and look ourselves. – Name and address withheld

A. Ring the girl and ask if she remembers the signet ring your husband was wearing on the night.